CPA Stars of the Future event being held in conjunction with schools experience day15 May 2018

CPA Stars of the Future

The Construction Plant-hire Association’s (CPA) forthcoming Stars of the Future 2018 apprentice awards event is set to be bigger than ever before.

Being held in association with headline sponsor A-Plant on Thursday 14th June 2018 at the Heart of England Conference and Events Centre in Fillongley near Coventry, Stars of the Future is being held directly alongside a Schools Experience Day for the first time to help influence career choices amongst young people from local schools. Over 100 children aged 11-14 from schools in the Coventry, Birmingham and surrounding areas are expected to attend the ‘Can U Dig It? Yes U Can’ event to see some of the latest construction machinery and to talk to some of the leading players in the industry about how they could potentially start off their careers. The Schools Experience Day is being hosted in conjunction with Big Bang Near Me on the same day and same venue as Stars of the Future.

Kevin Minton, Chief Executive of the CPA said: “This is an exciting opportunity to increase knowledge and understanding of the construction plant sector amongst local schools and to help influence future employment and career choices. We hope to inspire and excite young people into the industry and to show them the biggest and best machines. The research study we have recently carried out highlighted the difficulties associated with recruiting young people to the construction plant sector and this is one of the ways in which we are hoping to address this. Our intention is to follow up this initial event with future schools events in other parts of the country and it made sense to co-ordinate this first Schools Experience Day with Stars of the Future, which itself is a well-established event for rewarding some of the UK’s most promising Plant Mechanic Apprentices.”

Now in its sixth consecutive year, Stars of the Future is a national awards scheme for apprentices in the plant hire industry, organised by the CPA, the UK’s leading trade association for the plant hire sector. The CPA has over 1,600 members who supply 85% of hired plant to the construction industry. The awards scheme is run in conjunction with the UK colleges offering plant mechanic apprentice training and is supported by CITB. This year over 700 plant mechanic apprentices nationwide are eligible to enter the CPA Stars of the Future awards. Stars of the Future is one of a number of projects CPA has initiated to support skills development.

This year’s awards are for plant mechanic apprentices who have been assessed throughout the academic year on their work in college and in their work environment, and the enthusiasm and commitment they bring to learning. There are separate prize schemes for Level 2 and Level 3 apprentices, at both regional and national level. The awards are intended to recognise and reward outstanding apprentices who not only bring ability and commitment to their learning and their work, but also possess those extra capabilities which mark them out as being not only the foundations of the future of the industry, but also potentially its leaders - the Stars of the Future.